'Scab' umpires call game in New Britain

NEW BRITAIN -- Minor league umpires officially began their work stoppage at the game between the Rock Cats and New Hampshire Fisher Cats Thursday, which was the first minor league game played in the country, but replacement umpires filled in without

KEN LIPSHEZ

Published 12:00 am, Friday, April 7, 2006

Negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement between the Professional Baseball Um-pire Corporation and the Association of Minor League Umpires have been ongoing since November with little progress.

Eastern League president Joe McEacharn, who attended Thursday's game, was forced to put together a crew of replacements when the AMLU formally announced its intention to strike on Tuesday.

"We have hired umpires to work the games," McEacharn said. "All the games will go on. Qualified umpires are going to be out on the field and we're going to move forward."

Minor League Baseball has decided to withhold the names of the replacements, but the AMLU posted photos of the three umpires at the game with the following statement, "The first pitch of the 2006 Minor League season was called by a scab umpire in New Britain, CT. The three-man crew, all of whom decided to scab, will now have to live with their decision of jeopardizing the (livelihood) of 220 professional umpires. These 220 Minor League Umpires are officially on strike because of the unfair labor practices Minor League Baseball have continued to force in the cur-rent labor situation."

Rock Cats manager Riccardo Ingram said the replacements did a good job.

"They kept the game flowing," Ingram said. "I don't think we really even noticed. ... That wasn't even an issue today."

The strike affects all the minor leagues affiliated with Major League Baseball. McEacharn said management has a negotiating committee composed of representatives of the Council of League Presidents, Minor League Baseball as well as legal counsel.

"There's a pretty good disparity between views that are primarily economic," said McEacharn, who has a background in law. "We did reach a point where we declared impasse and imposed our last, best and final offer. It had increases in economic compensation, it had complete health in-surance coverage and premium costs."

McEacharn said the umpires were advised not to report to spring training, where they are employed by Major League Baseball clubs. In the final game of spring training between the Rock Cats and the Twins' Triple-A Rochester club Monday, a local umpire handled the plate and an injured player did the bases.

"With a strike, we have the right to replace them and we're not going to risk losing any games or risk our major-league partners' interest in development," McEacharn said.

He said the replacements are well-qualified.

"They're all college umpires from various levels," he said. "Most of them have been to the umpire schools that the regular umpires go to down in Florida. Most of them have been working college games this year. We feel good that they're qualified. ... We're really just replicating the system we already had in place."

Minor league umpires have been unionized since 2000 when they signed a five-year agreement. According to an Associated Press story, the umpires say that salaries average $15,000 per year at Triple-A, $12,000 at Double-A, $10,000 at full-season Class A and $5,500 at short-season Class A.

"One of the things that has surprised us is that through rhetoric and their actions, they've indi-cated a desire to make minor league baseball a career," McEacharn said. "That's contrary to when they first formed the union. Their interest primarily lied in they wanted to know sooner rather than later if they weren't going to make the big leagues."

The Associated Press reported on March 24 that management's lawyer George Yund "likened minor league umpiring to an educational program rather than a lifetime career."

AMLU attorney Robert Weaver told American Public Media's Marketplace Show Friday that minor league umpiring "is an apprenticeship in a sense. But the opportunity for advancements is so slim, less than one a year on average. In the meantime you've got umpires with families who haven't had a change in the pay structure since 1997 and 1998."

The AP reported that the AMLU said it has filed charges of unfair labor practices with the Na-tional Labor Relations Board in Florida under allegations that the PBUC was going to fire um-pires who went on strike.